The Wayne County Jail project cost an estimated $140 million before being scrapped last week. / Aug. 15 photo by Kathleen Galligan/Detroit Free Pr

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

The auditor said he met with Ficano administration officials today to review some of the drafts and would include their responses to them in his final report. / Kathleen Galligan/Detroit Free Press

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Wayne County Auditor General Willie Mayo says he plans to heed a directive from Prosecutor Kym Worthy to keep confidential the findings of his audit of the botched county jail project pending a criminal investigation.

“We put it in the deep freezer for now,” Mayo said today. “Eventually, it will get aired out.”

Mayo said he received a letter Monday from Worthy asking him to withhold the findings from commissioners and the public. The request drew fire from county Commissioner Raymond Basham, D-Taylor, who insists taxpayers have a right to know what went wrong on a project that cost an estimated $140 million before being scrapped last week.

Worthy’s letter said secrecy is needed to protect the integrity of the criminal investigation.

“I am directing you and your office to not turn over your completed report or a copy of your report to county officials, which includes any underlying documentation, and under no circumstances should your office release these materials to the public,” Worthy wrote to Mayo, in a letter dated Monday. “This prohibition specifically includes any documents, e-mails, work product, or ‘working papers,’ that your office utilized in drafting this report.”

Worthy spokeswoman Maria Miller declined to comment on the letter, citing the criminal investigation. Worthy’s letter came five days after Mayo forwarded a draft copy of his findings to County Executive Robert Ficano’s administration for response.

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Mayo said he met with Ficano administration officials today to review some of the drafts and would include their responses to them in his final report.

“They are subjects of the audit, so auditing standards require me to do that,” Mayo said, adding: “I don’t think they are going to respond because there is a criminal investigation.”

Worthy’s letter apparently allowed for that.

“I am directing your office to provide the proper county officials of your determination an opportunity to review only the minimum necessary for a fair response to the ‘conditions and causes,’ as well as to prepare written responses to your findings should they voluntarily choose to do so,” Worthy wrote.

Basham chairs the commission’s Audit Committee and said commissioners and the public should see Mayo’s findings.

“If the administration knows and the auditor knows, and I’m chairing the Audit Committee and I don’t know, that’s troubling,” Basham said. “If the prosecutor wants to keep a portion of the audit report confidential, we’ll work with her on that. But don’t stop the whole audit.”

Mayo’s audit on the Wayne County Consolidated Jail Facility construction costs is one of the most anticipated audits in years as officials try to determine what went wrong.

Ficano’s chief financial officer, Carla Sledge, serves as chief administrative officer for the Wayne County Building Authority, which oversaw the project. The five members of the building authority are appointed by Ficano, with approval of the County Commission.

Ficano spokeswoman June West said last week that officials were reviewing the draft, which she said included “numerous inaccuracies.” West said Ficano intended to ask Mayo for documentation for some of the conclusions.

Worthy’s letter notes that county ordinances give the prosecuting attorney’s fraud and corruption investigation unit the authority to investigate “suspected wrongdoing of a criminal nature.” She also quoted from the ordinance: “If an elected official, officer or employee takes a deliberate action which impedes or compromises an investigation, that person may be charged with obstruction of justice and prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law provides.”

Basham said he has asked the County Commission’s lawyer, Felicia Johnson, to review Worthy’s letter and craft a response.

“I think as chairman of the Audit Committee, I have a right to know and taxpayers who are funding all this have a right to know, as well,” he said.